I was looking for The Host on ondemand and couldn't find it. I saw Ichi and remember hearing it mentioned somewhere in a thread. Said something about a japanese gang and I love Yakuza movies. I rented it and all I can say is Woah. Fucked up shit. I'm not one for saw type movies but If I must I'll watch it and try to enjoy it, like reading an awkward book. I don't like Ichi, hes a nut but the Yakuza parts are cutthroat. Fact is some people get tortured in the world, may as well get in the touch of the reality of pain. I love psychology so serial killers are interesting to me. Doesn't seem as sadistic with (gang) business behind it.
I looked up Ichi the Killer awhile back and found all sorts of gruesome horror flicks, including a bunch of homemade films made to look like real snuff films. I watched one of them, it was a pretty fucked up movie.
I love that movie, I actually own it. It's definetly hard to get into when you first see it but as soon as some of the torture scenes come in you definetly get into it, or grossed out, but that's personal preference.
The rape shit is a little much. So is the Tachibana part. I could watch Kakihara all day though. I might look for some movies just staring that guy. It's interesting how passionate he is about his work, vs the the sociopath who feels nothing. Yakuza papers is still an all time fave.
Takashi Miike is a hardass, enough said. Another good movie is Dead or Alive, and he has some other brutal films, i.e. Audition and Visitor Q [never seen it but I've always wanted to]
Ya the rape scenes are pretty brutal. I laughed at the tachibana part(if im thinking of the right part) cause it's not everyday that you see someones leg get cut like that and they just hop around, I think it was more of her reaction that I laughed at than the actual violence. And yes, Kakihara made that movie what it was..great! But I definetly wouldn't want to meet someone like that in real life unless I could be sure that I could stay on his good side. I'll have to check out the Yakuza papers. I'm a big fan of anything mafia related,but moreso with Yakuza because of their discipline and loyalty. I was watching this small documentary about yakuza tattoos and the fear they strike into people that see them (atleast in japan,etc). One ex-yakuza was talking about how he had to cut off the tip of his own pinky because a man higher up than him didn't like the tone he had on the phone was right while talking with him. Definetly intense.
When my friend first showed me Dead or Alive I laughed my ass off when all the zombies sat down for dinner..mmmm curry. As for audition I've never seen it but I'll have to check it out. Visitor Q is a little more fucked up than Ichi. Let's just say sex with rigor mortis chicks is a tough situation to get out of. Oh, and LOTS of lactation..you'll see what I mean when you see it.
It's a six or seven part movie following several rival families and completely breaks it down, all the way from when the yakuza were kings, up till when the families came together when the police we're cracking down. People are constantly moving up or getting killed off. Battles Without Honor and Humanity (仁義なき戦い, Jingi naki tatakai?) is a groundbreaking 1973 yakuza film by Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku and adapted from a series of newspaper articles by Koichi Iiboshi, a journalist and former yakuza[1]. It is the first film in a five-part series that is known as The Yakuza Papers. Due to the series' enormous commercial and critical popularity it was followed by another three-part series, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and concluded with a final installment, Aftermath of Battles Without Honor and Humanity. It is often called the "Japanese Godfather". The violent, documentary-style film chronicles the underworld tribulations of Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), a young ex-soldier and street thug in post-War Hiroshima. Starting in the open-air black markets of bombed-out Hiroshima in 1945, the film spans a period of more than ten years. The plot consists of a changing of the guard of new families and organziations with the same feuds and people, punctuated by the gritty violence. It gave way to four sequels, which form a sprawling yakuza epic. The overall message and tone of the series is a bleak meditation on violence, chaos, and futile struggles.
Although Ichi the Killer is decently brutal enough it always had that cheesy comic book feel to me. The true Takashi Miike jem is Audition, now that is a truly terrifying movie.